


Propinquity

by quentintarrantino



Category: Original Work
Genre: 30 Days of Writing, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quentintarrantino/pseuds/quentintarrantino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 Day OC Character Challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, if you're reading this Phoenix Bentley and Leo Cable are my babies and me and my friend Ashley have been writing them forever and I am doing a thirty day writing challenge we made for them and my portion will be hosted here (maybe Ashley's as well if she makes an AO3 account and I can just dual author her into this). I know a lot of you don't care because this is non fandom based and you know jack shit about them but Phe and Leo have a really tight hold on my heart. If you read, enjoy.

The exact place they had met had long since escaped her mind, it had been late at night and filled with friends and the air had been smoky. Laughter rang through the compact spaces and ever so often an arm would dart out of the crowd to hook around her elbow and pull her into conversations, smiles and faces bright with the promise of excitement. She had been happy to be there, everyone knew each other to some degree and the steady hum of chatter was warm and inviting, a weekend that started off great and could only get better from there, the kind of evenings that only seemed to exist in cheesy indie movies.

He had been against a wall, long limbs wound tight around himself as if he was trying to take up as little space as possible, scanning the room with a grin on his face like he was just so pleased to see everyone getting along. At least a head taller than her, his hair a tousle of curls with spidery fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle with a pack of cigarettes poking out of his jacket breast pocket. It hadn’t been her who had bridged the gap although when she thought about it later she really wished she had been. Someone had asked her, trying to be heard above the din if she knew so-and-so and she had frowned and shook her head in reply and there had been a collective gasp of shock because it seemed everyone knew him and an equal number loved him. He was friendly, considerate, and shy enough for it to be endearingly cute. She wasn’t shy at all, and probably could stand to be more considerate, she certainly was no lady. Her friends had giggled before pushing her through the throng and that’s how she had found herself standing in front of him for the first time, blinking with her chin tilted slightly up to meet his gaze.

He seemed equally surprised at her sudden appearance, even in the poorly lit and hazy area she could pick out the flecks of green and brown in his eyes.

“Hi.” She said, voice raised too loud and making her sound obnoxious.

So-and-so raised an eyebrow and his lips twitched in almost amusement. “Hello.” An accent, British no doubt. She turned to seek shelter among those who had put her in this situation but they were across the room and offered no help, studiously ignoring her as she swallowed and turned back to look at the towering human pressed against the wall.

“I don’t think we’ve met.” She tried again, lowering her tone to a more manageable volume.

The man was smiling now, not in mocking but like she had told him a funny joke, the kind of smile that made her feel warm on the inside. He smiled like she was something unique in a sea of ordinary. “No I don’t believe we have, do you have a name?”

She didn’t mean to, but she smiled back at him, easing up just enough to work her words into a teasing lilt. “I do have one, most people do.”

She wondered if he spoke to everyone like they were old friends. “Ah yes, that’s usually the way it happens. Would you do me the honor of knowing it per chance? I am Leonard, most call me Lenny, it seems to be less of a mouthful.” Leonard told her, extending a hand that she shook only once before letting go.

“Lenny?” her nose wrinkled and his smile faltered for just a minute at the air of disgust that was evident. “No offense but I think I’ll call you Leonard. You don’t have any other nicknames?”

Leonard frowned like the thought had never even occurred to him before this moment. “There are a lot of Lenny’s in my family.” He responded, like this was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the ugly shortening of an otherwise normal name. “And yours?”

Her brow furrowed. “My family?”

“Your name.” his accent wasn’t entirely British, it was warped like he had spent time somewhere else before coming to New York. She couldn’t place it, but it sounded melodic, if barely there.

“Oh, I knew that. My name is uh, Phoenix.” She said, feeling self-conscious that she had made a rude remark about his name but hers was so bizarre, hypocrisy at its finest.

Leonard’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I would’ve expected something a little more boring from someone who dislikes the name Lenny so intensely.” He ribbed. “Phoenix like the fire bird?”

“Yeah, I don’t think there are a lot of Phoenixes to choose from. Sorry about that, that was a dick thing to say.” Phoenix added quickly but he didn’t look the least perturbed, if only more amused.

“No it’s quite alright, ‘to each his own’ isn’t that America’s motto? I like the name Phoenix, it carries a certain spirit with it. Suits you wonderfully, I can see the fire behind your eyes.” He made a show of bending down a bit to get to her eye level, pretending to peer inside and her cheeks tinged almost obscenely. “Will I see you again fire bird?” he asked softly, straightening up and his voice dropping like his request for her company was a secret he didn’t want to let the world in on.

Phoenix opened her mouth but someone shouting out her conversation partner’s name stole his attention and a group of men (she could pick out some familiar faces among them) were beckoning him away. Leonard seemed genuinely torn between staying next to her or heeding their calls, looking to her with his fingers wringing the bottle in his hands almost nervously. “I think you will.” She confided in him, the small smile on her lips seemed to lift his spirits.

“I look forward to it.” He replied honestly. “My friends are calling me _ma Cherie_ I must be going, it was nice talking with you.”

French, that was the accent his was mixed in with. By the time she had processed what he had said he had left her side, brushing by her lightly so the skin of their arms nicked just enough to send a small zing of electricity through her body. She turned her head and watched him disappear into the crowd, looking back only once to meet her eyes and smile like a schoolboy. There was never anything quite like first impressions.


	2. Movie

“Papa.”

“Hm?”

“Papa!”

“Yes my love?”

“That man looks like you.” A small girl exclaimed, wiggling her torso away from her father as she pointed overhead to look at the billboard that was looming precariously over the street while the busy cars passed by. The man who was holding her readjusted his sunglasses and followed where her finger gestured, peering up while his wife picked through the produce bins outside the market they were standing in front of.

His son was clutching tight to his mother’s wrist and he looked at the sign too, his eyes going wide before his brow furrowed in confusion, tugging against his mother to get her attention. “Mom look.”

“What?” she said, half distracted while she examined two nearly identical vegetables, feeling them to see how ripe one was compared to the other. Her son’s pulling increased until in exasperation she did as he said and her eyebrows shot up. “Oh wow.”

The sign depicted someone with stringy black hair, a rather ridiculous helmet, and some rather elaborate armor. The figure clutched at a scepter and had a malicious smile on his face, big block letters stating confidently that it was an advertisement for the Avengers. Beside her, her husband lifted his sunglasses up off his face and while they were very different it was uncanny how similar their facial features were. “Papa is famous!” his daughter said, delighted at the prospect.

“Well how about that.” Leo said, a little bewildered as his daughter snatched his sunglasses off of his head and put them on her face, where they remained for about two seconds before they slid off and crunched against the concrete, only to be stepped on by a pedestrian who wasn’t paying attention. He went through a pair about once a week, Florence’s recent obsession with glasses hadn’t been helping. “Sweetheart,” he told her gently, stooping down with her pressed to his chest so he could grab the now twisted frames with the cracked lenses to toss them. “It never hurts to ask before taking something.”

“Sorry.” She lisped, sliding into French as effortlessly as breathing. His expression lightened and she smoothed the transgression over by wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a kiss on the nose. “Papa can we go see the movie at the cinema?” she asked, smooshing his cheeks together, the breeze picking up and stirring her hair which had been plaited into golden braids.

Leo did not answer immediately, turning his attention to his wife who was still examining ingredients for tonight’s dinner. “ _Cherie_?” he prompted, taking a hand away from his daughter’s back to reach for hers as she rummaged through her purse for her wallet. “What do you think?”

Phoenix looked up at her husband, feeling his fingers wind around her hand and move her a little closer to him. “What do I think? About what?” she said, tapping her wedding ring against the plastic of the little shopping basket so that it made a clicking noise. Griffin was a few feet away, stooping down to pet a dog that had been tied up at the café next door, it licked his hand and he squealed happily, skittering away to rejoin his family.

“A movie. To go see my frightening alter ego on the big screen.” He said, looking back up the billboard where his more murderous body double was still leering.

Phoenix turned her head so her cheek was pressed against his arm in a quietly affectionate gesture and her husband dipped his head down to quickly kiss her hair, her eyes closed momentarily and the ghost of a smile found its way onto her mouth and both her children made gagging noises in response. “Gross.” Griffin complained.

“Love,” Leo frowned at his son. “Is not gross.”

“Yes it is.” He retorted, his sister fidgeted in her father’s arms until he loosened his grip and she slid down his leg to stand on her own, scowling when Leo snagged her hand to prevent her from running too far away.

Phoenix seemed incredibly amused by all that was transpiring around her and with a sigh she shouldered her purse and shrugged. “I don’t see why not, it is a weekend after all.”

At mother’s blessing the children cheered, choosing to stay with Leo while she disappeared quickly into the store to pay for the groceries. Paris was uncomfortably hot in the summer time, sometimes she forgot, her hair bundled haphazardly on top of her head in a messy bun with small strands sticking to the back of her neck. Leo took the plastic bags from her, exchanging Florence for the produce as they started walking back towards the apartment.

“Maman,” Florence said after a few minutes of silence. “Did you marry papa because he looks like a movie star?”

At the question Phoenix looked down at her daughter who seemed to want a completely honest answer. “I married your papa because he wouldn’t stop asking.”

Leo gave her his best rendition of the stink eye. “Don’t lie to the children _Cherie._ ” He accosted. “It’s bad form to mislead.”

Phoenix didn’t say anything, preferring to give him a wink that made his ears tinge pink (it never failed, one of the most enchanting things about her husband was that after all these years he still seemed to blush at the slightest inclination to flirting. It made her feel like she was twenty three again) while she tucked her arm into his elbow as they walked with Griffin ahead of them, jumping at pigeons every few feet. Florence was beside herself, chattering the whole way home about how excited she was to see the movie.


	3. Writing I

Her friend’s apartment was quiet except for the ticking of his laptop keys as he frowned at the screen, jotting down the first inklings of what would soon trickle into a full blown story. She had known Leo for months now and had never seen him write, inspiration seemed to sweep in at random points and when it captured him he wrote with reckless abandon.

Lounging on his couch with his cat nestled against her chest she tilted her head while he backspaced what seemed to be an entire paragraph before beginning again. “Thought of something good?” she asked, not surprised when he ignored her.

“Mm? Yes.” He answered fleetingly like he had more important things to do than talk to her, despite the fact that when she had offered to leave an hour ago he had vehemently refused. So she wandered around his little dwelling space, playing with his pet and looking aimlessly at the ceiling. His typing had a sort of rhythmic quality to it and it was like a lullaby, allowing her to drift in and out of her thoughts freely with little hindering. So wrapped up in herself was she that upon returning to the present moment she had looked over to see that Leo’s writing had ceased and he was watching her with his eyes alight.

“What?” Phoenix questioned, suddenly self-conscious.

Leo smiled like it was a secret that he didn’t want her to know just yet, he was holding all the cards and she had a hand full of jokers. “I haven’t written like this in years.”

“That’s good!” she encouraged, he nodded. “Is that a roundabout way of saying that I’m a distraction?”

This seemed to tickle him, his grin broadened and he set the laptop on the coffee table, shifting seats so that he was sitting next to her on the couch. “On the contrary _cherie_.” He explained. “You make me…” his words stopped for a moment as if he was picking through his vocabulary for the right one. “You make me better. A muse, if you will.”

She blinked. “I’ve never been called a muse before, that’s a new describing word. Can I put that on my resume?”

He shook his head, looking both at her and through her as if there was a bigger picture just behind her eyes she couldn’t see yet. “No, I don’t think I want to share you. What if others start seeking you out for inspiration?”

“Well maybe I should start being a professional muse if that’s the case.” She scoffed, moving up so that her legs were crossed underneath her and her hands were twisted in the fur of the car in her lap. “But I’d still make sure you got to see me the most.” Phoenix reassured him. “Can I ask what your story is about?”

“I doubt it will find its way into a novel, I was just so taken by the idea I had to write it out.” Was all he offered in response and Phoenix didn’t push, it was his creation to do with it what he wished after all. “What of your writing?” he asked her, probably referring to the half finished novel sitting on her computer at her apartment.

“My writing? Nonexistant. Between work and work and you I have no time.” She replied, studying his features, the stubble on his face that had remained for several weeks now after she had accidentally let him know that she preferred him with facial hair. He hadn’t shaved since, only trimmed to keep it manageable.

Leo smirked, rather uncharacteristically snide for him. “My upbringing demands I apologize for monopolizing on your time but I can’t find it in me to do so. Maybe I’m not that sorry?”

“I’m not sorry either.” Phoenix said immediately. Leo looked at her for a few moments before shifting his eyes away to pick up his laptop again, the clicks of the keys replacing their brief conversation as he took up his writing. 


	4. Writing II

Phoenix wrote meticulously, Leo was broad and sweeping. When he wrote a story it was grand and long and its characters came tumbling out of the pages like they had been alive all this time. Phoenix’s novels were like carefully stacked building blocks, the characters had not been there existing in the nether but had been created and breathed life into by her always present hand. She built worlds in paragraphs and he flicked his wrist and wiped away the fog of a window for you to peer through and see a universe that appeared to be always there, moving along whether you chose to believe or not. Their styles were so different, and sometimes Phoenix felt like she was less of an author for it, her preparation made it seem as if this was the product of many years of struggling to learn to write while Leo did it so effortlessly like he was just filled to the brim with ideas.

They both favored the living room when they sat down and began to type away, both wrapped up entirely in their own heads but their bodies tangled together like the proximity soothed. Leo would sit, upright and alert while Phoenix spilled over the side of the couch, her hair pooling on his lap and her feet propped up on the arm of the sofa. When he wasn’t typing his hands would run through the strands over and over again, his thumb rubbing circles against her temple. She changed positions frequently, inching close to Leo with every page she wrote, he didn’t seem to mind and often would shift with her to accommodate, they would lay on the carpet for hours in positions that couldn’t have been comfortable under normal circumstances and when they finished would shut their computers and breathe out a sigh of relief.

Writing was like making love, both were exhausting. Curled up so entirely around each other, skin colliding and torsos twisting to make room for the other, pressed against the floor or the couch cushions. When the writing was finished they would stare, trying to process all the information filtering behind their eyes, not unlike the post-sex haze, filled with lazy smiles and the occasional cigarette. Her head would fall on his chest and his spindly arms would wrap around her and they’d talk about all the things coming into play within their particular plots. It brought them closer, it fuelled more creativity. Leo had once called her his muse but it was more than that, they were their own sources of energy and when one was gone it was impossible to write, they had both tried to and failed.

Manuscripts litter the apartment, half finished or completed with their names scrawled across in ballpoint pen because they forgot to type a cover page. Stories with no end, some with no beginning. Sitting in the middle of their room Leo points out how bohemian they look, her wearing his too large shirts and him in a sweater with a mug of tea with their little kingdoms piled high against the walls. She laughs, a pen is tucked behind her ear and a notebook filled with ugly poetry is in front of her. This is early, they’ve known each other for almost a year and a half and she doesn’t know it yet but Leo has an engagement ring tucked deep in the folds of his laundry in the second drawer where his socks are. Night falls and under the light of a dimming lamp they scribble and scrawl out galaxies, chattering all the while about lost ages and what they’re having for dinner tomorrow. Arm and arm they jump across canyons of conversation, she falls asleep in a heap of blankets and he carries her to bed, wondering how one person could have skin bleached so white under the moon.

Sometimes she thinks their entire relationship could just be a manuscript, messy misprints and red ink used to cross out all the parts too bad to be in the final draft. Dialogue and chapters all loosely held together by twine they found in the back of a craft shop when they were browsing a late Saturday evening. Leo’s face is as winding as one of Hemingway’s monologues in the morning and the lines on his face are slack, his fingers map across her back and his lips taste as sweet as reading Huckleberry Finn during a New York heat wave with only the chill of the air conditioning and a bowl of strawberries for company. Their stories grow, from chapters to volumes to a whole series stretched out to the moon and back, the swell of her stomach is an amazing writing desk except that the baby inside keeps kicking the notebook and making her words swerve off the page. Leo says that this one will not be a writer, she agrees.

They once spent an afternoon speaking only through text, cell phones and pieces of scraps, dirty restaurant napkins. His penmanship is perfect, slanted and cursive and hers is stubby, barely legible. They fit together like puzzle pieces.

 _Love you_ , she writes to him, careless words slung around like a bag of bricks.

 _I am in love with you,_ his eyes bore holes into hers, his fingers that hold the paper are trembling.

It’s the only one she kept from that day, pressed tightly into the corners of one of her many editions of the Great Gatsby. Leo is in the next room, scribbling furiously away while her son kicks the inside of her stomach, his tiny heart fluttering in time with his father’s writing. 


	5. Carnival

The lights of the funhouse flicker, children run to and fro between the rides and the dead grass crunches underfoot while she nervously fiddles with a cigarette a young man gave to her in hopes of sparking conversation. She came with friends but is still worried someone from school might see and it will get back to her parents, her skirt uniform shifts uneasily along her legs as she strides with her golden head bent down examining the ground. She has been waiting for this all year, the fairgrounds outside the city are smothered with people, somewhere a woman is laughing, she hears the sound ring in her ears.

“Florence that boy has been watching you.” One of her friends whispers from beside her, their matching uniforms and plaited hair making her look like part of a set. Her head turns sharply at the direction she gestures and there is indeed someone watching her, his eyes hooded but his manner innocent.

There hasn’t been a story about her parents she hasn’t heard, their love is a cup eternally spilling over and while they give her hope she isn’t sure what to make of this word called love just yet. Her mother tells her she knows when it happens, that she felt it when her father held her hand and kissed her cheek and gave her a blue rose. Love takes many forms, there’s a creased and crinkled photo in an album somewhere of her father sitting in a hospital hallway with a bundle pressed to his chest that looks bloody and matted, and she is told repeatedly that the bloody bundle is her. Florence wants to believe in it but its hard when you’re squinting between the lines looking for the sign. She goes to parties and when a boy kisses her neck and tugs on her shirt she feels her stomach flutter, she’s worried that maybe she’s defective somehow and fated to fall in love with every one of them which would make parting that much worse. This boy watching her from across the fair doesn’t kiss her neck, he doesn’t try to pull her clothing off of her or fit his hand between her legs. He shakes her hand and when he speaks his French is more perfect than hers.

Her parents once went to a place like this, across the sea in a city she’s barely seen. It’s crowded and noisy like Paris but a different kind, the people there aren’t like Parisians. They kept a journal back then, they keep one now but she isn’t allowed to read it. The one they thought they hid away is buried in her closet, she used to look at it at night with a flashlight between her teeth, flipping pages and matching the handwriting. They wrote about that night, there was a Ferris wheel and she can’t imagine a time where her father didn’t have the wrinkles on his face or her mother didn’t have grey in her hair but the photos pasted in the book tell her otherwise. She holds the photograph up against the mirror to compare, she sees her father in the way her eyes widen, in the soft curl of her hair and the color that gives it life. The girls in her class love her hair, they stroke their fingers through it and say how beautiful she looks. It feeds her ego, it makes her blush.

“My name is Christophe.” He tells her, his hand is callused.

She tucks her cigarette behind her ear and smiles. “Florence.” She provides. Her accents bleed together to create a unique pattern that she hasn’t heard anywhere else. Her brothers are like her, their upbringing defining how they sound.

His hair is dark, his eyes are black. She sees a reflection in the funhouse mirrors, they are night and day. Like her mother and her father, their hair mixes strangely when she enters their room in the morning and they are sleeping side by side, the contrast is stark.

This boy does not try to take her clothes off; he does not tell her he wants to fuck her. He holds her hand as they walk through the stands and he helps her into the Ferris wheel, he hangs his head out of the side and the wind stirs his hair while he smiles up at the fireworks exploding across the deep blue night. The reds and purples illuminate his face and he digs into his pockets for a lighter, handing it to her and he doesn’t make fun when she coughs on the smoke but for some reason she feels childish and fake with it in her hand and she drops it off the ledge to watch it fall to its death.

“Do you believe in love Florence?” he asks her, many months down the road. She won’t answer him, she leaves him standing in the street with a rose in his hand. It isn’t blue, it’s red like the fireworks and she is terrified because this is what her mother told her about. That you feel it blossom in your gut and it takes hold of your heart and Florence has never liked being tied to anything, she is wild. Her father whispered to her when she was little that she was the child of the fire bird and that her spirit was strong. But that is many months later, and after a year she will take his rose and kiss his lips and he will smile at her like she imagined her father smiled to her mother.

In the present moment she takes his hand while the Ferris wheel stops at the top and the hollow tunes play below as they watch the carnival. 


	6. Travel I

“First time out of the country, anything I should expect?” Phoenix asked him, smirking into the camera as he snapped a photo of her buckled tight into her plane seat.

“No harm will come to you I promise.” Leo vowed, taking another photo for good measure. She pushed the camera away and rolled her eyes. “Are you excited?”

“I’d be more excited if you’d stop taking a picture every ten seconds.”

“It’s a momentous occasion, I must document.” He said studiously, switching settings momentarily to take a few of the plane which was very obviously still on the tarmac in America. She regretted buying him the new camera for his birthday more and more every day, he had gone out and bought photo albums he said he would stock up with memories to be reflected upon later. “Smile _Cherie_.” She gave her best scowl and he tutted, taking the photo anyway.

Despite their difference of opinion when it came to how well the trip needed to be recorded one of Leo’s hands was tangled with hers, his thumb running over the ridges her engagement ring created. “I’m kind of nervous.” She admitted, laying her head back against the seat. Her fiancé frowned, lowering the camera to look at her seriously.

“Don’t be nervous, this is a vacation,” he told her. “What did you call it? A ‘pre-honeymoon’?”

Phoenix bit her lip to keep from grinning. “It’s not a bad kind of nervous. It’s like… butterflies.”

Leo was quiet for a few moments before giving her a wry side glance. “I’m sure we could hop off the plane now, rebook tickets to Paris-,”

“Oh no, we are not having this discussion again-,”

“ _Cheeeeeeeeeerie_ France is beautiful this time of year-,”

“We flipped a coin, tails Paris, heads Florence. Guess who won? _Me_ -,”

“I have it on good authority you cheated-!”

“I cheated? That’s pretty rich coming from the man who steals monopoly money to buy railroads-,”

“That was one time are you seriously not going to let that one go-?”

“I can’t marry a man who cheats at monopoly, displays bad character.” Phoenix said with tight lips. He gave her a look that spoke volumes about how unimpressed with that statement he was. The PA system dinged and she broke eye contact to look out the window while the pilot spoke a few words and the flight attendant ran through the safety procedures. There was silence, someone coughed at the back of the plane.

Leo squeezed her hand, she hear d a click of the camera shutter going off and absentmindedly she slouched to rest her cheek on his shoulder. “Let’s have an adventure.” He murmured to her as the plane rumbled to life and she watched the tarmac begin to move.

Her ears popped, the engines roared and they began to ascend. “Off we go.” She replied, the clouds obscuring the view of New York City below them.

They sat like that for a while, both heads turned out to see the sea swallow the land, endless blue on either side as far as they could see. Phoenix settled against her fiancé and the butterflies multiplied. “You’re a good sport you know.” She told him. “You could’ve ditched me at the airport and gone to Paris on your own.”

Leo looked appalled at the thought. “You have a poor grasp on the concept of marriage _cherie._ ” He said. “I am marrying you because I enjoy your company, and it is good for you to experience other places before Paris, you wouldn’t fully appreciate it right now I think. You need to become a little more seasoned.” Phoenix stuck her tongue out at him to display her maturity level. He chose to ignore it. “Besides, by your side is the only way to travel.” 


	7. Travel II

Cadmus first sees America when he is six. He doesn’t remember much about the first time, only that there were a parade of relatives who didn’t have all of their teeth and spent much of the visit cooing over him and his siblings. He remembers sitting in his father’s lap and eating pumpkin pie and there was football and he played outside with the other children, the tall fields holding infinite possibilities for adventure. It was autumn and the leaves collected like a mosaic on the ground, his little head poking through a pile, his blonde curls matted to his head with a mixture of sweat and dew from the wet afternoons. His galoshes squished through mud and his jacket kept him semi-dry while his parents sat on the porch talking with the adults. His cousins were much bigger than he was but they were so fond of him, everyone was fond of him. Florence was a princess but Cadmus was a cherub, his round cheeks and perfectly blue eyes with a rosy blush that was always there.

He cried when they boarded the plane to go home but as soon as they were back in Paris the tears ceased because for all the excitement he really had missed the familiarity of it all. He remembers the smell of his mother’s hair as she held him in her arms while they retrieved their luggage in the airport, the French being spoken in rapid succession was soothing, his eyes drifted closed to the hum of his father’s voice.

When they return nothing is the same as he recalls. The fields aren’t as large and sweeping, the fog that rolls in isn’t as magical. His cousins have grown too old to care much for him, they include him only because he is a guest. The heaps of leaves are dead and withered, they crunch underfoot while he leaves in the morning to sit on top of a hill by the house his mother grew up in. There is a creek that winds down through the valley and tire swing, he tries to think of the woman who raised him as young as he is, swinging from it in the heat of summer. He wonders if she still had a bit of twang in her voice when his father met her, probably not. His siblings stand out in this alien landscape, their accents and tendency to lapse into French, they are foreigners in a country where they claim citizenship. He does not cry when they board the plane this time, he does not wave goodbye and when they land in Paris he inhales the crisp air and is glad to be back to a place he understands.

Six years later he goes back, in the summer to spend time with his grandparents. Griffin is at university in England, Florence has graduation. He boards the plane alone and when he steps out the heat makes him sweat, his messy mop of curls sticks to the back of his neck and he hates it. His cousins are large, muscle bulging from their necks and it’s probably because with options of entertainment so limited they have nothing else to do but lift weights and drink coors light. Cadmus is taller than most of them, but he is lean and lanky and his body has not begun to fill out yet, his pale skin is red and itchy from the mosquito bites he gets on his first night there and they laugh at him.

He calls his parents long distance and tells them he hates this place and wants to go home. He tells them in French so his grandparents don’t hear and their feelings aren’t hurt. They tell him it’s only for a month and he will be home soon, it’s too early in Paris to continue the conversation and they say they love him before hanging up.

It’s so humid he thinks he will go insane, his cousins take him down to the creek and they all strip their clothes off and plunge in. He follows and the water stabs him like little knives as he rushes to the surface to gasp in surprise. When he adjusts he can see there is a girl who he does not recognize swinging a few feet away on the tire swing. Her hair is blonder than his and freckles dot her face. She catches his eye and sticks her tongue out at him brusquely before sliding off the tire and into the water with a splash.

Samantha lives on a farm, a few miles down the road from his grandparents. She likes to read books about cowboys and goes to church every Sunday because it’s what good girls do. Her accent is not like his, but it’s a melody that won’t leave his head. He sits in the fields he used to play in when he was younger with her and tells her stories about Paris and the world waiting for her beyond this place. The heat makes their clothes sticky, she braids wildflowers into her hair and tells him softly that she would love to see France one day.

He kisses her by the creek the day before he’s supposed to go home. Her lips are pliant and her breathing goes uneven to match his. With his long fingers wrapped tight around hers he promises that they will see each other again even though he isn’t sure he can follow through with it. She nods and kisses him again until they end up half dragging, half pulling each other into the shelter of the barn where they don’t emerge until night fall. Samantha traces patterns on his shoulder blades that makes him swear in French, he fumbles and blushes and she does the same and he’s pretty sure he falls in love with her right there on the ground with her body pressed tight against his.

His parents are waiting for him at the airport, he isn’t pale and lanky anymore he is tan and the first ridges of muscle are building on his frame. His mother says he looks so handsome and he says in the taxi on the way home he wouldn’t mind going back next year. He thanks them for the opportunity and they reply that it’s always nice for a young man to expand his mind through travel. 


	8. Ring

Paris shines like a diamond of a different kind, the satin box in his pocket is a weight, threatening to pull him down and for the earth to swallow him up never to return. Her fingers are linked with his, strands of her hair flying in the breeze and his city in spring is only rivaled by her beauty. This is her first time, the lights reflect off her eyes and he can feel the steady tug of his heart as he falls in love with them both all over again. She lets him go only to look over a bridge, standing on her toes like a child and he presses his chest to her back, chin resting atop her head. “What do you think?” he asks gently.

“It’s beautiful.” She replies, breathless. “You were right.” the sky is dark, the clouds obscure the stars and he hopes it doesn't rain. 

“About what?”

“Everything.”

He wants to hold this memory forever, if time were to stop and he were forced to relive this day again and again for eternity he would not mind. She smells like a perfume he bought her months ago, the slope of her hips lets him wrap his arms around her comfortably and the small box in his pocket has begun to burn his leg. “I love you.” He tells her, first in French and then in English. She wiggles out of his grip to turn and face him, leaning against the stonework of the guard rail.

Phoenix looks shy, its all the more endearing as her cheeks flush and she kisses him. “As I love you.” She replies. Lovers in Paris, it’s almost too cliché.

His watch tells him that it’s 11:56 at night, four minutes to go and he gathers her hands in his before waiting for their eyes to meet. “Phe,” he says, suddenly serious. Her smile fades a bit, sliding from blissful to cautious, her body tensing. “I have a question for you.”

“I… have an answer for you?” she returns, hesitant and he feels his nerves drive a spike of terror through him at the mere idea she could refuse his proposal. If she were to walk away from him, possibly forever while he stood there looking like an idiot. Had he misread this entire thing? All the ways this could’ve been a bad idea occur to him now and he keeps his face composed because for once he knows that he has to ask. He cannot let this perfect moment slip away.

He checks his watch, 11:58. “ _Cherie_ ,” he tries again. “You are my other half. Never have I felt for someone like I feel for you and… to even think of spending my life without you near me gives me so much pain I can barely stand it. I want to build a life with you, I want a family and I want to wake up every morning and I want to see your face.” Leo is acutely aware that Phoenix is crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and he falters, reaching up and brushing his thumb to wipe them away. He would be discouraged by this display of emotion but her lips are stretched wide in a smile and it spurs him onward. “I want to grow old with you.” He states firmly.

11:59, he’s on one knee, people are watching and there is a small crowd gathered. Phoenix has her hands pressed against her mouth and the little satin box is in the palm of his hand, opening to reveal a silver band with a stone in it that reflects brilliantly off the streetlamps. Their audience gasps, an appropriate distance away while he looks to her for signs of refusal or uncertainty.

His watch beeps, 12:00. Midnight in Paris. “Phoenix Bentley will you marry me?”

He selected this piece of jewelry because he believed it would compliment her, her hands are small and white and beautiful and one of his favorite parts of her. He loves the way they feel when they settle on his cheeks, how they twine with his own and right now they’re grabbing at his shirt, yanking him back to his feet and her lips are colliding fiercely with his and he can feel the fire. She’s kissing him and crying and nodding with a little tremble in her chin and he knows he’s crying too, possibly more than her because she stops and starts laughing, wiping his own face and dotting the tracks with doting pecks while the strangers hurry away to keep from intruding any further. She’s calling him an insufferable romantic and he has his arms locked so tight around her he doesn’t ever think he could let her go. At four minutes past midnight it starts to rain and Leo does not care, he kisses his future wife under a streetlamp on a bridge in Paris and her finger shimmers from the gem on her new ring.


	9. Laughter I

Three o’clock was a miserable time to be awake. Phoenix reflected on this as her eyes cracked open to stare at the ceiling while her husband rolled over, blissfully oblivious to the muffled cries coming from down the hall. “Leo,” she whispered, voice thick with sleep. “Leo wake up.”

He groaned, flipping back to bury his face in the crook of her neck. “No.” he said back.

“Your son is crying, it’s your turn.” She insisted.

Leo made a noise that sounded like he was going to start crying too as he stilled for a few beats before hauling his body into a sitting position, blinking furiously to make himself coherent enough to stand. “What time is it?” he slurred.

She tilted her head to look at the clock. “About three.”

He buried his face in his hands, curls skewed and standing up in strange places as he leaned over to give her a kiss on the temple before getting to his feet. Always the gentleman. “My bloodline calls to me.” He grumbled, opening the door and walking down, silhouette barely visible.

She laid in bed, listening to the crying as her husband nudged open the door to the nursery, his voice sounding much warmer when he spoke to his son and the distress ended as abruptly as it had started. Leo was humming absentmindedly, she heard him perfectly from her spot under the covers. With her eyes adjusted to the dark she saw him moving back towards their bedroom, his arms full. “What do we have here?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows while Leo hitched Griffin up on his hip, passing him over with little qualm when her son reached out with chubby hands to her.

“Go see your mother, tell her of your problems and leave me to sleep.” He told the baby who was now smiling like nothing had ever been the matter in the first place. Phoenix took him and propped him on her stomach, letting his fingers latch around her thumbs. Leo all but collapsed on his side of the bed, face sinking into the pillow while he lay on his side, watching his wife and son interact with a fondness that was not lost despite his sleep deprivation.

“Don’t listen to your dad, he’s just grumpy. He cries more than you do really.” She murmured. Griffin’s lips stretched wide into a grin that looked quite silly with no teeth and he slouched his little shoulders, rolling off of her onto the mattress between the two of them. He poked his head up, brow furrowed as he processed the violent shift of his world, attempting to use his limited motor skills to flip himself onto his back. Leo assisted, picking him up and tilting him over.

Phoenix’s hair pooled around the pillow and some of it brushed against her son’s face, making him scrunch his nose up in a manner that so reminded Leo of his wife that he bit his lip to keep from laughing. The trek from his crib to the bed however seemed to have worn Griffin down and with a resigned sigh he rubbed his eyes and coughed a bit before his breathing evened out. “He looks so much like you.” Leo said, almost as an afterthought as both parents watched their six month old drift off once more.

It was true, Griffin’s hair was a dark brown much like hers and it waved softly. His eyes were the same shade of washed out blue. “Maybe next time around you’ll get lucky and baby number two will look like you.”

Her husband shook his head. “I can’t think about another child right now. Later, tell me later when this one isn’t dragging me out of bed at all hours of the night.” Griffin yawned in his sleep. Phoenix’s shoulder shook with silent laughter. 


	10. Laughter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole a bit of this from Louis CK's show Louie, this is a joke he tells about his daughter. When I heard it I thought of this scene and I had to write it. Here's a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/45881283
> 
> Florence tells jokes like her mother, Phe was never very good at it either but Leo always found it incredibly endearing.

“Daddy.” Cadmus said as he watched his father burn his hand on a hot pot he had forgotten about while making dinner for the three children sitting around the table. His arm whipped away from the stove top and the burnt fingers went into his mouth to keep from swearing while he turned to heed his child’s call.

Their mother was gone, she had left to go to the States to promote a new book she had written and Cadmus missed her already even though she had only left yesterday. He took solace in the fact that his father was equally distressed about her being absent, and before bed he had snuck out of his room to dial his mother’s number using the portable phone in the living room, taking the device into his room where he sat with the blankets pulled up to his chin while she sang him a song for him to fall asleep to. Griffin had made her face appear on the computer screen that day and Cadmus had promptly burst into tears begging her to return home. “Soon my little love.” She had promised him while he sat in his father’s lap, head buried in his chest. Being able to speak with her whenever he felt the need soothed the immediate ache and to help ease his anxiety about the possibility of her never coming back his dad had sat with him at the dining room table making a little calendar to mark the days until she was home again. It was behind his head now as he sat beside his siblings, legs dangling off the edge of the chair.

Florence and Griffin were both busy doing homework, their books arranged in neat little piles around them but he had no such worries yet. Cadmus was eager to start, he liked to walk with his father to pick his older siblings up from school, watching the children play in the yard on the swings and wishing bitterly that he could join in on the fun.

“Yes _mon ange_?” his father’s voice jarred him from his thoughts as he watched begin to spoon macaroni into three separate bowls. “What do you need?”

Cadmus put his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands. “I have a joke.” Florence looked up dubiously from her work book, pencil mid-sentence. He scowled at her until she stuck her tongue out and busied herself with her studying.

His father raised an eyebrow, choosing to let the interaction slide by while he wiped the counter clean of any mess that might have been made. “What is your joke, tell me.” He replied, rummaging through a drawer for forks to stick in the food before beginning to shuffle them to the table for his children to devour. At the unannounced but heavily implied approach of dinner the books and papers were tucked under seats in a flurry, all energy being redirected into shoveling pasta into their faces and dirtying their school uniforms.

The littlest of the four picked carefully at his food, formulating the joke in his head before looking up at his dad who was sitting across from him. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asked seriously.

If Leonard Cable knew the answer than he was fantastic at hiding it as, with a completely intrigued expression, he leaned forward. “Why?”

“To get to the other side!” Cadmus said, eyes widening comically and his father erupted in a fit of chuckles that were actually sincere, but not at the amusement the joke caused, more at the gusto with which his son told it.

Florence frowned at her younger brother, then to her father. “I don’t get it!” she complained.

Cadmus shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe you aren’t funny.” He told her. She reached across the table to poke him hard in the arm, her brother responded and it was their father who pried them apart with a warning to behave. They went back to eating, the mood a bit dampened.

“Knock knock,” a new voice said, all eyes shifted to the other end where Griffin was sitting, a smirk on his face that most definitely was one he learned from his mother. In a sea of blonde he was the only dark haired one of the bunch besides the absent member of the family who was overseas at the moment. His younger brother was enthralled by this new game they had discovered and he pushed his food out of the way in favor or slapping both of his chubby hands on the table.

“Who’s there?!” he pressed urgently, Florence seemed to be buying into it now as well and their patriarch seemed just as invested as ever.

“Who.” The eldest told him, popping a bite of macaroni in his mouth.

“Who _who_?” his sister piped in.

The look of absolute mirth on Griffin’s face lit up the entire room. “I didn’t know you were an owl!”

Their father began laughing again, a deep belly laugh that made all three of them giggle until their cheeks flushed and their older brother couldn’t masked his pleased smile. It seemed the game’s rules had been laid out, the one to tell the joke that made papa laugh the hardest won and it was a viscous competition.

“No, me I have one!” Florence said when they had all regained their breath. “Papa I have one I have one!”

All the attention shifted to her, the three boys waiting expectantly and it seemed apparent that she actually did not have a joke and Cadmus was eager to share more of the ones he had learned from a joke book Gran had sent him from England (he couldn’t read yet, his mother had read them to him a month ago and he had carefully memorized each so they could be drawn upon in times such as these) but thinking quickly on her feet his sister just spouted out the first promising hook she could imagine. “Who didn’t let the gorilla into the ballet?” she told her father, speaking slowly like she was trying to buy more time to think of a punchline.

Papa seemed fascinated by this one, both the brothers were itching to share their own but he folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, tapping one finger against his chin to show that he was thinking of all the people who could possibly be there to stop a gorilla from entering a ballet theater. The moments of pregnant silence ticked by and after what seemed like ages he looked to her. “Who _ma fifille_? Who did not let him into the ballet?”

Florence looked wryly at him before shrugging her shoulders like her brother had done minutes earlier. “Just whoever was in charge of the decision.” She said simply.

“That’s stupid.” Griffin replied bluntly.

“ _You’re stupid_!” Florence snapped and Cadmus was too busy trying to piece together what was so funny about the joke because their father was beside himself, his face red while his shoulders heaved, the apartment ringing loudly with the sounds of his laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mon ange- My angel  
> ma fifille- my little girl  
> Leo is partial to French terms of endearment if you haven't picked up on it yet, 'ma cherie' is a special one only for Phoenix however.


End file.
